


Mr. Capable

by Pepsi (Pepsiiii)



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Character Study, Hypnos muses about his powers, Talk of comatose states, brief mentions of Than and Charon, talk of death, the dangers of sleep yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pepsiiii/pseuds/Pepsi
Summary: He’s been called a lot of things in his life (is it really living? He thinks so but some others around him have argued otherwise on a few different occasions) but nothing ever really stuck.Except scary.Hypnos was scary. Perhaps petrifying.OR; Hypnos thinks over the capabilities of his powers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 153
Collections: I Bet You Weren’t Expecting THIS (character to be so badass)





	Mr. Capable

**Author's Note:**

> My new friend @koipalms lets me be insufferable on the TL and gave the genius idea of Hypnos as the oldest brother of the three who fights nightmares off and protects his younger brothers (it's so cool yall) anyway this is for them!

He’s been called a lot of things in his life (is it really living? He thinks so but some others around him have argued otherwise on a few different occasions) but nothing ever really stuck. 

Except scary. 

Hypnos was  _ scary _ . Perhaps petrifying. 

Yet no one really thought so. Not usually. Not on any given day or night; not during any conversation with the simplistic god; not while gazing at his lounging form at his post. He wasn’t intimidating in the slightest. He was tall by both human and shade standards, but that didn’t mean much when a lot of the surrounding gods were taller than him (excluding his brother and the prince of hell). He also slouched constantly, dwarfing himself from his full height to anyone bored enough to spare him a passing glance. 

His main form of dress was a… dress and a giant comforter turned cloak he wore everywhere. A feather in his hand for scribing, a scroll of parchment paper that seemingly never ended, and a lazy smile were all he took to work. No weapons, no glares, no bloody fists promising a terrible demise. 

He didn’t leave much of an impression, not really. He was funny (he thought) and helpful (he thought) and good-heartedly compassionate (this was pretty common knowledge though) but those weren’t the kinda things that stuck to the walls of the mind. Those weren’t traits of living nightmares and beings of immense power. That was the disposition of the cleaning lady (the one with snakes for hair. So no, he was actually less outwardly scary than her too).

But, in a way— those were the things that made him all the more terrifying. 

He was the god of sleep. He helped people sleep. He calmed nerves and helped those who needed a moment of rest after death. He floated around, sometimes aimlessly, and gave any room he was in a nice sense of calm— regardless of how calm it actually was. 

He was the god of sleep. He saw the nightmares of those around him at will (though he didn’t pry too often, it wasn’t his place. Well, it  _ was _ but that’s not polite) and in an act of goodwill, got rid of them. 

He was the god of sleep. Time meant less to him than most since any time he wasn’t asleep he was awake and so goes the opposite. He controlled sleep for all living things. 

He was the god of sleep and he could kill  _ any _ god. 

He was the god of sleep and he could kill  _ anything _ .

(Well, that was a  _ bit _ hyperbolic. Gods were tricky to kill, but he could easily do the next best thing. Ever heard of a comatose state? Yeah, well Hypnos can do  _ that  _ , and arguably it's _so much worse_ )

His brothers were directly connected to death. One literally was death (bless his heart), the other a facet of death meant to transport the dead from point A to point B (bless his too). Really great work both of them are doing. Hypnos adores them with his whole heart (being the oldest will do that he supposed) without a doubt.

But they didn’t have the powers to just completely end a God’s very existence. They could rupture the cycle or maybe start it over but the River Styx never dried and as such the gods above and below were yet to die— truly die, by anyone’s hands.

But Hypnos controlled sleep (the well-meaning and usually forgotten brother of death itself). Everything and anything capable of rest was under his jurisdiction and, unfortunately for gods, they were  _ very  _ capable.

It was a taxing though (should anyone ever give the thought the time to fester, to be pondered in any real capacity). To be between the plains of life and death, never being  _ truly dead,  _ yet… losing the ability to  _ truly live _ forever. Stuck in a limbo of nothing (or maybe entirely nightmares of the greatest torment possible— whatever Hypnos was feeling at the moment he supposed) and being little more than a breathing corpse. Dead in every way that mattered— yet still very much alive.

Would the gods notice how the world changes? The humans below them evolve (or perhaps decline) as time passes by; seasons shifting and moving (if we imagine the god of seasons isn’t on Hypnos’ shit list that is), the world and heavens above turning and changing slowly like a bolder within a stream. Chipping and changing and smoothing down, smaller and smaller until finally, it’s no more bolder than the stream is a single drop of water. It’s little more than a pebble— no, worse. Little more than _grain_ now and no one on earth (above or below) would ever know otherwise. 

Could they miss the taste of their favorite wines? The savory spices they’ve used forever and always in heaven? The feeling of the sun and the stars dancing on their skin as they sat (or ran or danced or loved) beneath them? The suffering of humans, would they miss it? The sounds of water and laughter or just something as forgettable as footsteps and breathing. Would they miss blinking? Hypnos didn’t. 

He _could_ let them experience it. 

But, his job isn’t to run rampant around the mortal and very un-mortal realms sticking everything he deems fit into a coma they’ll never wake from. That was a lot of work. Also, Hypnos wasn’t that petty.  _ Yet.  _

It’s just funny that no one remembers that Hypnos can do what he does. It’s just always notable how Hypnos is treated like fourth-rate compared to everyone else because he isn’t actively ripping hearts out of previously closed chests or swimming in Styx water to help get the line moving faster or something. He was just…. for all intents and purposes— a ticking time bomb. A very chipper, smiling time bomb. 

And perhaps that’s scary. 

Maybe his capabilities are a tad unbecoming of a small god such as himself.

Yet, as is life and death, it is what it is. 

**Author's Note:**

> Im @MrsHaiiba on twt!! talk about Hypnos with me!!!!
> 
> Remember to comment it’s scientifically proven to make me update more and faster


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